


Janet

by Ninkasa



Category: Fire and Hemlock
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-28
Updated: 2009-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninkasa/pseuds/Ninkasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom and Polly prepare for a new addition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Janet

When Polly said she was praying for a girl the woman standing behind them in line had given a knowing laugh. Four young boys were hanging off her and Sam had just thrown a football across the store, causing the poor woman to have to dodge out of the way.

Sam swore he'd been aiming for Tom. Polly said his aim was off as Tom had been standing on the OTHER side.

What Polly didn't say was that it had nothing to do with a boy being too much of a handful or girls being sweeter. It was simply the fear of what Laurel would do were she and Tom to ever have a boy.

She had enough fear over what Laurel would do were she and Tom to ever have a girl.

It wasn't as if they had been planning on a girl.

It wasn't as if they had been planning on a baby at all.

As Granny had said when Polly had called to tell her:

"These things happen."

Polly worried more than she was willing to tell Tom. Because then HE would worry about her worrying and she suspected he was already worrying enough. But she just kept waiting for Seb to suddenly show up. Laurel had to know by now. Nina knew, which meant Leslie knew. . .which meant Laurel must know.

And quite frankly, she was absolutely sure that Seb was aware of it even without Laurel. Hell, at this point, Polly was positive all of Middleton must know.

And she hadn't been in Middleton for several months.

She thought that she would be more excited than she was. She was turning out to be one of those mothers who were convinced EVERYTHING was going to go wrong. The general enthusiasm that Fiona and everyone around her had over the notion that there was going to be a baby had not yet spread to Polly. The idea just wasn't something that had fully sunk in yet. And it needed to start sinking in. It would do her no good what so ever to suddenly realize that a child was coming the moment she went into labor.

The only one who seemed to share her misgivings was Tom.

Which was also a bit of a disaster in the preparation front, one of them needed to have some enthusiasm over this and if neither of them could at least fake it they were in for huge difficulties.

Polly thought she would be slightly more enthusiastic if she knew what had happened to Janet's baby. Then maybe some of this fear would subside.

She had tried to find out. She and Fiona had spent several afternoons combing the university libraries trying to see if there was a version of the old poem that went on beyond the procession. They had not found any and the fear had multiplied. It was turning into something akin to a living thing that was constantly with her and no amount of chiding herself or feeling annoyed that she had once thought herself brave would do anything to make the fear subside.

Fiona had suggested that this might be part of the reason she was less than giddy over the prospect of this child.

"That and the fact that it throws your life's plans out of the window," had been added at the last second.

It was not the best timing in the world. But again . . . things happen. And she wasn't unhappy about it; Polly just wasn't as excited as people seemed to think she should be. And although she'd never say it aloud, she had been terribly relieved that Tom had not seemed terribly enthusiastic either.

Polly smiled at the man behind the counter as he handed her the bag. She caught onto Tom's hand and followed Ed and Ann out of the store with Sam trailing along behind them.

"I cannot believe this baby," Tom said as they waited to cross the street. "You would think it would be ordering chocolate cake or hamburgers. Instead it wants carrots."

"Could we not call it 'it'?" Polly said, and then had to stop at the absurdity of the question. Despite the question, she couldn't bring herself to call the baby "him". And saying "her" just seemed like asking for a disaster.

"Call it Chris," Sam suggested.

Everyone turned to look at him. Sam shrugged. "What? Chris is a generic name. Christopher if it's a boy. Christine if it's a girl."

"Or Christina," Ann pointed out as they moved swiftly across the street. The bag Polly was carrying banged against her knees until Sam suddenly grabbed onto it and pulled it from her hands.

"You'll move faster," he said in response to her head whipping around to look at him. After a moment he said "Don't look at me like that."

Polly had been allowing Tom to more or less tug her towards the cars and therefore slammed into him when he stopped suddenly and her legs kept moving with the momentum.

"I found the car," he said, looking down at her with something of a smile on his face.

"I noticed." Polly had to hang onto this arm to keep from toppling over. She felt off-balanced all the time now. As if she would tip over if something happened to set her in the wrong direction.

Polly slid into the passenger seat of the horse-car and turned to fasten her seatbelt. Tom had always been slightly obsessed about her making sure she wore a seatbelt when she was in the car with him. He was downright manic about it now.

Quite frankly, she was a bit obsessed about it herself.

Polly had been a lot quieter the last few days than she usually was. She knew this. She also knew that Tom was just simply not enquiring because he knew she would tell him if it was something crucial that he needed to know.

They drove along in silence for quite awhile, and then Tom said in a voice that sounded a lot more cheerful than Polly knew he felt:

"Look at it this way; no one's asked to feel your stomach yet."

*****

The most annoying thing, Polly had decided, was that she went from one high to one low in a moment's notice. At one point, she was giggling and the next she was crying uncontrollably.

And poor Tom just seemed rather bewildered as to what to do about it. And for reasons Polly couldn't fathom . . .everything he did lately had been getting on her nerves.

Which was why five minutes ago she had been yelling at him for leaving the bedroom light on and now she was a sobbing wreck.

Tom looked like he wasn't sure whether he should hug her or bolt entirely. Apparently the comfort-impulse was stronger than the flight-impulse because he came around the chair and hugged her.

"What's wrong now?"

Polly shook her head shortly. "I don't know. I swear. I just . . . I don't know why I'm yelling at you."

"I suspect it's easier to yell at someone who you know loves you than it is to yell at a complete stranger," Tom said amicably. "Lessens the chance of face-punching."

Polly giggled and shrugged her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright."

It wasn't really. She could tell by the confused and hurt expression he'd had on his face that he wasn't entirely okay with being the focus of her hormonal outbursts. Polly rather wished he wouldn't act so soft all the time. She knew he was much more resistant than he put on, but for reasons she couldn't understand he let her push him around a bit.

And sometimes she did it before she realized it.

"There's no more pie, by the way," Polly said, pulling away and changing the subject in one motion. "I ate it."

Tom blinked at her as if he hadn't understood her correctly.

"What do you mean, you ate it?"

Polly shrugged. "I mean just that. I ate it."

"All of it?"

Polly nodded. "Yes. I think the baby was craving cherries . . . OH!"

"What?"

Polly put her hand against her belly where she'd felt the movement and pushed slightly, only to have something inside push back. "I think it's kicking."

"I thought we weren't calling it 'it' anymore," Tom said as Polly took his hand and placed it where her hand had been.

"Wait," Polly said. Nothing happened. She pushed on her belly again. "Move. Come on."

She felt the movement again. "There! Feel that?"

Tom's eyes were wide behind his glasses. He knelt down in front of where Polly was standing and looked rather stymied for a second. Then he pressed his ear against her belly.

"What are you -- "

"Shh." Tom looked up at her. "Hold your breath, just for a moment."

Polly stared at him for a moment then did what he said.

He knelt there for a moment and then looked up at her, smiling one of those smiles that seemed to spread everywhere. "I can hear its heart beat."

Polly burst into tears.

Tom stood up, looking confused. "What? What's wrong? I'm sorry."

Polly shook her head. "It's not that," she said after a moment. "I want to hear it too."

Tom looked utterly relieved. "Oh. That's easy enough to fix." He turned and went into the bedroom. "Stay here."

Polly had been standing utterly still for what felt like forever when Tom returned carrying one of those listening devices the doctors used. He grinned. "This is what comes from letting Ed store things in your apartment."

He put the ear pieces in and placed the other end against her belly. He was quiet for a moment, then smiled again and took out the ear pieces, handing them to her. "Here. You'll hear two. The louder one is yours."

Polly held her breath again and was fairly astonished to hear the soft sound behind the sound of her own heart.

She felt she might start crying again and tried desperately not to.

It suddenly occurred to Polly why Tom looked as shell-shocked as she did.

They had been spending so much time worrying about what a baby might mean they had completely forgotten that a BABY was actually involved. This was the first indication they had had that a little, living human being was in existence inside of her. The first sign that a little person they had created was going to be coming into this world.

Polly did start crying at that thought.

*****

Tom and Polly were both quite adamant about the fact that they were not getting rid of the horse-car. The fact that everyone except Fiona kept insisting that they needed something safer only served to make the fact that they were keeping it even more important.

They'd picked a hell of a time and very stupid thing to be stubborn over.

"It's not really safe," Nina pointed out as she turned to hold up a blue jumper. "I mean, what if you have a wreck?"

The way Tom drove, Polly was surprised there hadn't been one yet.

"That's what car-seats are for," Polly pointed out.

"Still," Nina started to say, only to have Leslie nudge her in the side. Nina shook her head. "You don't want a blue one?"

Polly shook her head. "No blue. We're going for neutral colors."

"Still holding out for a girl?" Leslie said, picking up a toy duck and then setting it back down hastily.

Polly shrugged. "Yes. It's Tom's notion. He says we can't buy gender specific objects and then have the opposite gender. If we buy all boy things and have a girl, we'll be forced to raise her as a boy anyway."

Polly knew he had been joking, but the idea had stuck. Besides, she never had fully understood why all boy objects had to be blue and why all girl objects had to be pink. Why not yellow and purple or something such as that?

Actually, yellow and purple didn't seem like such a bad idea. Polly picked up the duck Leslie had laid down and tossed it into the pram with the other clothes and bottles.

She hated shopping. Actually, she didn't mind shopping, she hated shopping with someone. Particularly Nina. Polly liked getting whatever she came for and then leaving. Nina liked browsing.

"Have you thought of anymore names?" Nina dropped the jumper and picked up a yellow one, which she tossed into the pram.

"No," Polly said. This was another issue which everyone seemed to think they had some say in. And she rather wished they would stop, she and Tom were having a hard enough time coming up with names on their own.

"What about Gwyndolyn?" Nina said as if Polly wasn't looking mutinous at the mention.

What was it with these long, old-fashioned sounding names? Everyone kept coming up with Guinevere, Morrigan, Deborah, Rebecca. . .

Not that there was anything wrong with those names. Actually, Ed had pointed out that:

"You and Tom seem to have this pre-disposition towards the older names." He'd shrugged and then suggested Ophelia, which had resulted in Ann stomping on his foot.

Polly shook her head. "She'd get nicknamed Gwyn." Not that there was anything wrong with that. It just didn't really seem to fit what she and Tom had been thinking.

Not that they really knew what they had been thinking.

"Samantha?" Leslie said, gesturing to the cots on the other side of the room.

"We already have a Sam," Polly said, ignoring his gesturing. She wanted to wait for Tom to pick out something that huge. He'd be back on Friday, they could get one then. Leslie stopped pointing at the cots and picked up a packet of dummies instead.

Stuffing something into a child's mouth just to get them to stop crying seemed cruel, but Polly figured that after a week of the baby's crying she would have changed her mind.

"I don't suppose you've given any more thought to boy's names?" Leslie said.

"Not Thomas," Polly said. That really was as far as they had gotten in the discussion of if the baby turned out to be a boy, that and the fact that the child would not be permitted to do anything remotely artistic, although that had been more of a joke than anything else.

"Miriam?" Nina said, following Polly towards the cash desk.

That actually wasn't bad. Polly bit her lip, and then said, "Maybe."

Here she turned and looked at Leslie full-on. "How are YOU, by the way? I'm afraid that with the baby and everything we've stopped focusing on you so much." She paused. "We are still trying."

They were, but the honest truth was, neither she nor Tom could think of anything. Polly suspected the rules may have changed since she had thwarted Laurel this last time, so she wasn't sure she knew how much help they could actually be.

Leslie shrugged. "I'm alright. I haven't actually seen Laurel much in the last week." Here he turned as if expecting her to appear out of thin air. He paused for a moment. "She knows. About you, I mean. I didn't tell her, but somehow. . ." he hesitated, and then ploughed on. "And Leroy knows too. In fact, Laurel seems to enjoy harassing him about it. Actually, they seem to enjoy harassing each other about it." He paused again, and then said: "Be careful there."

Polly just nodded and turned her attention to the cash desk. The lady in the queue in front of them had turned around as they came up. She had the look that Polly had come to dread. Polly wished Tom was there. He had a manner that seemed to deflect any idea a stranger might have of invading Polly's personal space.

An older lady had asked if Polly was pregnant once when Polly had first begun to show and Tom had answered, quite soberly, "No."

The poor woman had looked so mortified, that Polly's soft-heartedness had welled up and she'd apologized to her for Tom being rude. The third or fourth time it had happened in the same store, Polly had stopped apologizing for him.

Polly just tended to let people get on with it so she could go about her business.

"When is it due?" the woman asked, looking as if she wanted to touch Polly's belly, but not quite sure if she should ask.

"Soon," Polly said, without really thinking about it.

The woman nodded and turned her attention back to the cash desk.

Here, Leslie looked startled.

"The baby's coming soon?"

Polly's mouth opened, closed and opened again.

"Apparently."

******

"I told Ivy."

Polly turned from where she had been resting against Tom's arm and looked at Granny.

"You did?"

Tom tipped his head to look at Polly. "I thought you were going to tell her."

She'd meant to. She just hadn't gotten around to it.

Granny smiled. "I figured it would be easier on Polly if I broke the news to her parents."

Polly stared. "You told Dad too?"

Granny nodded. "He seemed more shocked that you were old enough to have a child than the fact that you were actually having one."

Polly nodded, staring down at Tom's hand, which she had been playing with. "What did Ivy say?"

Granny snorted. "Nothing I would repeat in front of you."

Polly swallowed and then said. "Granny, I love you."

"Of course you do."

Tom kissed Polly's fingers and then squeezed them slightly.

After a moment he said, "what about Charlotte?"

Polly wanted to roll her eyes, but she smiled instead. They were becoming desperate. The reassurance they had had over the sonogram that they were in fact having a girl had pushed the fact that they were coming dangerously close to calling this child "Untitled Baby Project" to the front of the issues they needed to deal with.

They only had three weeks left.

"Elizabeth?"

"Eliza, Liz, Beth," Tom pointed out. "Do you really like being called 'Pol'?"

Polly stuck her tongue out at him. "Do you really like being called Tom?"

Granny sat down across from them, Mintchoc leaping up to her lap.

"I daresay you've had more suggestions than you know what to do with," she said. "So please feel free to ignore this." Granny paused for a moment; Polly suspected it was just for effect.

"What about Janet?"

Polly and Tom looked at each other for a long moment.

Janet.

Oh, why hadn't they thought of it?

It was perfect. They might not be able to prevent Laurel from targeting her, but they could give her whatever protection they could.

And what better way to annoy Laurel than to name the child after the first girl to ever thwart her?

Polly grinned and turned back to look at Granny.

"Granny, I love you!"


End file.
